Mattiak stood to pace. “We have to pursue,” he said. “If they have more forces out east, we might not be able to defeat their combined army. We have to catch them before they get too far.”
“We need more information,” Drussik said. “We might be running into a trap.”
“We can’t afford to wait that long,” Kalanik said.
“I can find out,” I said.
All four of them looked at me. Drussik looked annoyed. He’s about eight hundred years old and is suspicious of me because I’m both female and a mage. Kalanik and Bronnok, both reluctant supporters of the mage auxiliaries, looked skeptical. And Mattiak frowned at me. “Sneaking is one thing,” he said, “but we need someone who can move quickly.”
I shrugged, and flitted from one side of the tent to the other. “Is that quick enough for you?” I said.
Everyone but Mattiak recoiled when I did it. Mattiak’s frown deepened. “Gentlemen,” he said, “leave us.” They glanced at each other, then at me, and filed out. “Sit,” he told me. I sat.
He sat down opposite me. “You can’t go farther than you can see,” he said. It wasn’t a question. I nodded, wondering where he was going with this. “You get disoriented when you…I don’t know what you call it. Arrive. Yes?”
“True,” I said, “but—”
“We don’t know how far ahead the invaders are,” he added. “So we don’t know how long it will take.”
“I’m still going to be faster than any of your runners,” I said.
He put his hands on his knees and gripped hard, like he was trying to keep himself from standing and pacing again. “So, to sum up,” he said, “you can’t go straight there, you’re defenseless at the end of each of these leaps, you don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t know how long it will take.”
“That sounds right,” I said.
He shook his head. “I can’t allow you to risk yourself like that,” he said.
“I’m a soldier, aren’t I?” I said.
“You are not a soldier, and I don’t give a damn what the King thinks about it,” he shouted, startling me. “Who else is going to direct those mages if you don’t come back? You think those invaders are going to be gentle with you if they catch you? This is not a risk worth taking!”
“So we should wait to see if we run into them the way that division did, unprepared?” I said. I managed not to shout at him in return. “Or send a runner who might be captured and killed because he can’t escape the way I can? We’re not—”
“Out of the question,” Mattiak said. “You want to be a soldier? I’m making that an order.”
“I misspoke,” I said, still remaining, if not calm, at least outwardly so. “I’m not a soldier. I’m a spy. And this is what spies do.”
“Not you,” Mattiak said. “You—” He stood and turned away. “You’re not replaceable,” he said.
“Elleria and Ryenn are both capable of directing the mages, and Rutika is almost as good a spy as I am,” I said. “I’d be a poor general if I were actually irreplaceable.”
He shook his head, but said nothing. I went on, “This isn’t as dangerous as you think, Mattiak. I haven’t told you even a third of the things I’ve done over the years that were more dangerous than this. Mostly because you might think you should hand me over to the authorities.” I smiled so he’d know I was joking, but that was wasted because he still had his back to me. “I’ll be careful. Remember, I can’t flit farther than I can see, and I’m sure I’ll see the enemy long before I get that close. Then I’ll come back. I won’t go into the camp or anything like that.”
“I wonder if you’ll be able to help yourself,” Mattiak said.
“Of course I will. As if I’d risk myself like that when the point is to tell you where the army is,” I said.
His shoulders slumped, then he turned around to face me. “I hope I never meet your husband,” he said. “There’s no telling what he might say to me for letting you do this.”
I remembered all the times Cederic had told me not to go wandering, but with that look on his face that said he knew I couldn’t help myself. My instinct is to protect you, but that instinct is wrong. You would not be who you are if you were not willing to risk yourself, he’d said, and the memory made me smile, because everything he felt for me had been in his eyes at that moment. “He knew what I am when he married me,” I said, “though he’d sympathize with you having to deal with my recalcitrance.”
“I know exactly how your husband feels about you,” he said, turning around to smile ruefully at me. “You go, you come back, and if you spend one more second than you have to in the field, I’ll devise a whole new set of punishments just for recalcitrant mages.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, saluting him. “I’ll need to explain what’s happening to the mages, and then I can leave immediately.”
“In the morning,” Mattiak said. “You might be able to see in the dark, but not as well as you can see in the daytime, and I don’t want you missing any evidence if they’ve turned well aside from where our men met them. And you should be rested. I’ll speak to those soldiers again and see if I can get you at least an initial direction.” He took my arm as I was about to leave the tent. “Be careful,” he said, and he looked so serious it made me shiver. I nodded.
So I’ve had time to pack some essentials, food and water and a blanket in case this takes longer than a day, and I’m doing what I always do to calm myself, which is write. I’m more excited than afraid. I’m sure I can keep away from I’m not going to write that. Too superstitious. Let’s just say I feel confident in my abilities, and I’m going to be careful, just as I promised Mattiak.
Though I feel…it’s probably nothing, but—the way Mattiak looked at me suggested he was concerned about me as something more than a friend. But he wouldn’t, would he? He knows I’m in love with my husband—I talk more about Cederic with him than anyone else, and he even encourages it, so would he do that if he had a romantic interest in me? I suppose attraction doesn’t care if the object of your interest isn’t interested in you, but why would he…
No, I’m being stupid. He’s far too old for me, and he’s not the sort of person who would let himself fall in love with someone who’s unavailable. And he certainly wouldn’t use a friendship to build that kind of connection when there’s no chance of it going anywhere.
Besides, I’m really bad at picking up on those kind of cues, so I’m almost certainly mistaken. There was a night—the last night before the convergence—where Cederic and I lay in his bed and made each other laugh at how we’d misunderstood each other so often. I’d told him how I’d thought of him as Smug Git before I could understand his language, and he’d said every time he’d come to my room in the palace to say goodnight, he’d thought about sweeping me into his arms and kissing me and couldn’t believe I had no idea how he felt. I teased him about being as blank-faced and unemotional as a statue, and he started tickling me, then kissing me, and that led to more interesting activities no statue ever dreamed of doing.
I have this fantasy—well, lots of fantasies—but this one is that I’ll flit all the way to the army, and it won’t be the God-Empress’s, it will be the army from Colosse, with Cederic at its head, and we’ll be able to clear up all the misunderstanding and bring peace to two countries so we can go off and live our lives somewhere far away from anything remotely political. I’d settle for just finding Cederic again.
6 Seresstine
I feel so stupid. And I don’t know what to do. So I’m going to write this all out and hope by the time I get to the end, I’ll have figured everything out. Unlikely, but with war bearing down on us, I’m trying to remain optimistic.
Just after dawn this morning, I took my first bearing, then flitted off before Mattiak could change his mind. I can now go about three miles at a time, and despite what Mattiak thought, I only experience about two seconds of disorientation between flits and it takes another second to take my next heading. I know
that doesn’t sound like much time, but a lot can happen in three seconds, and I had no intention of flitting into the middle of a division of Castaviran soldiers. I wish I’d been able to take the Castaviran highway, but the God-Empress’s forces, the one our people had run into, had been ten or fifteen miles north of it, so that’s where I went.
I managed to go about fifty miles before I ran into a forest that wasn’t there the last time I came this way. I think it’s the same forest that runs north-south near Hasskian, the one the Castaviran refugees were going to lose themselves in—not lose themselves, of course, but disappear into. It’s not that thick, but thick enough that flitting was a bad idea; I’d get less tired if I just walked between the trees. Flitting isn’t exhausting really, but it seems related to the walk-through-walls pouvra because it’s not instantaneous (takes maybe two seconds) and you can’t breathe. So flitting rapidly leaves you light-headed and breathless. Even so, it took me less than two minutes to get that far, and I felt smug. Just a little. Not enough to become overconfident.
I walked east for a while, took a rest to eat something, wished I’d brought something more interesting than trail bread and jerky, then walked some more. I made a lot of plans about flitting for when everything was over, calculated how quickly someone could flit from one side of Balaen to another and how much of a load someone might carry. Or—carrying another person? There are so many non-military possibilities.
It was about noon when I came out of the trees onto the plains that make up much of Balaen’s heartland. These, at least, looked the same, but they’re wide enough there might be any number of changes outside my visual range. I stopped at the tree line and took a look around. Snow had fallen heavily here, but the wind had blown it around so it was deeper in some places than others. I saw animal tracks, but no evidence of an army passing and nothing on the horizon.
I took a bearing and flitted away. Ankle-deep snow falling into my boots, melting uncomfortably, more animal tracks (I don’t know how to recognize anything but the difference between a bear and a deer. Jeddan could probably have told me what sex they were) and still no army. So I flitted again—and this time found myself in the middle of snow trampled by thousands of boots.
I checked my location by the sun’s position and figured they were either going southwest or northeast. I guessed it was the former, based on what the soldiers had said, but realized I shouldn’t make assumptions. So I flitted back the way I’d come in short steps until I came to the edge of where the army had passed and looked for outliers. It took me about half an hour to be certain they were going southwest—more south than west, actually.
This was where I had to be careful. I didn’t think it was breaking my promise to Mattiak to follow the army’s path until I found them, because we needed as accurate a position as we could get. But I didn’t want to flit into the middle of a bunch of the God-Empress’s soldiers. So I looked as far ahead as I could see, determined there was no army on the horizon, and flitted away. Then I did it again, and again, still finding nothing. It was almost twenty miles on before I saw the black smudge of a body of marching soldiers, two miles beyond where I stood. That was when I realized I had no idea where I was.
Well, I had some idea. I knew if I went west far enough, I’d run into the Royal Road, and from there I could find the Balaenic Army. But it would be hard for me to give a position for the God-Empress’s troops without finding some landmark or other. It’s a good thing Mattiak isn’t here, I thought, concealed myself, and set about flitting my way to the front of the God-Empress’s army.
It was definitely the division that had routed our soldiers, and those soldiers hadn’t exaggerated when they said they’d done some damage. The army marched raggedly, as if they were a fishing net with holes torn into it. Missing soldiers. A lot of missing soldiers. Not many mounted officers, either. I counted ten white-coated battle mages, but didn’t know if that represented all the ones they’d started with. They make themselves conspicuous twice over, between the uniform and the horses; I don’t think we’ll have any trouble targeting them. And there’s no way in hell I’m making my mages wear the King’s uniform. He’s not likely to find out, and if he does, he’s unlikely to do anything to me if I come back with a big enough victory, which I intend to do.
But I’m getting sidetracked. I got as close as I dared to the front of the division and took a look at it. It wasn’t a big division, and I think I miscalculated the number of feet that had made that path. But it was still big enough that, along with those mages, it could take a large chunk out of our forces. Those soldiers had been fortunate that division didn’t have any war wagons, assuming that’s what destroyed the walls at Hasskian. Or maybe they only use them against cities and not people. I don’t know.
I decided to assume they weren’t going to change course and flitted forward along their line of travel. Clouds were coming up, covering the sun, and it was starting to get cold—colder, anyway. I had to remind myself not to rush even though I was starting to feel a desire for a fire and a hot drink.
Three flits later I took a look around and saw I’d gone about five hundred feet past a wide, unfamiliar road. I went back to look at it and realized it was that mystery Castaviran highway. It made sense they’d want the nice wide road to travel along, and since they were cutting west instead of east, it also made sense they were planning to continue westward. The question was, as before, where was the main army? Because even though I hadn’t gotten that close, I’d only seen two battle mage pennants (interesting, two pennants but only ten mages?) and not the big battle standard or the God-Empress’s personal banner. So this was not the main army.
I looked westward down the road, then eastward. I still don’t think I was breaking my promise to Mattiak by continuing to explore even though I’d found the “invading army” I’d been sent to locate. So I started flitting east. There was no reason to believe I’d find the God-Empress’s army along that road, but as I wrote, it’s a good way to move an army, and I was certain we’d have found it if it were farther west than where I stood.
And my—not even a guess, more like a whim—was right. I found the God-Empress’s army not thirty miles away, camped outside a sizeable Castaviran city. They didn’t seem like they were planning to move any time soon, but I don’t know much about armies except what I’ve observed in my travels and over the last ten days. But there were the banners, and the big tents, and I stood some distance away, concealed, just in case, and watched them for about an hour, wrestling with myself. Because I was seriously considering breaking my promise to Mattiak, going into the camp, and killing the God-Empress.
I think I could have done it this time.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am the world would be a better place without her in it. Maybe I’m right that her generals would go on fighting even without her leadership, so maybe her death wouldn’t stop the war. But it would have to have some effect. No more focus for worship. No more insane demands.
What stopped me, in the end, was the realization that I didn’t know who would take over after her death. She’s got no heirs, which was why Aselfos could be so confident about being able to rule Castavir in her place. But it would almost certainly mean civil war in Castavir, and that would leave them open to conquest by Balaen. And much as I feel loyalty toward my country—though not much, mostly loyalty to Jeddan and the mages—I don’t want either of these countries subjugating the other.
So I realized it was a bad idea, then felt guilty that deciding this made me feel relieved. I have pouvrin that would make killing the God-Empress easy, not only easy but safer for me than for anyone else. So if I’m the only Balaenic who knows why she’s dangerous, and I have the capability of ridding the world of her, shouldn’t I do it? Even if the idea makes me sick? That’s what I was thinking at the time, at least. After my talk with Mattiak, I changed my mind. About a lot of things.
Anyway.
I eventually worked through all of that and turned
around to leave, flitted once—and landed squarely in the middle of a group of Castaviran soldiers. I can’t believe I was so careless. I was also startled, so startled I waited too long and one of them grabbed me and said, “What the hell are you?”
“None of your business,” I gasped, which sounded stupid then and still sounds stupid now. I wonder if there’s ever a time when that sentence sounds strong and defiant rather than like a whine.
“It’s God’s otherworlder, the one who was going to marry Aselfos!” one of them shouted, which disoriented me further. Not that I expected to be able to identify any of the anonymous soldiers who’d stood guard during that bizarre ceremony, but that anyone in this mass of people could identify me was preposterous.
I went insubstantial and stepped away from my captor, went substantial long enough to say, “Tell your mistress I said hello,” and flitted away. Not far, because I was breathless from the walk-through-walls pouvra, but far enough that none of those soldiers could reach me before I flitted again. And again. I was thirty miles down the road, back to where I’d started, before stopping to catch my breath. It might have been stupid to let the God-Empress know I was somewhere nearby, but—well, I hadn’t done it on purpose, and being defiant was something she’d expect from me.
I flitted back to our camp, slowly, because I was starting to feel achy—I don’t know if that’s just from the flitting, or from the walking, but I figured I had time—and reached the Balaenic Army camp about an hour before sunset. I walked into the command tent without announcing myself and dropped onto a stool, and said, “I could use a drink. Not of water.”
Somebody put a blanket around my shoulders, which I appreciated, even though I hadn’t realized how cold I’d gotten, and someone else handed me a flask of something that burned all the way down and warmed me up beautifully. Mattiak said, “Thank the true God you’re back.”
The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2) Page 23